


if you can erase it then i can atone

by katebishoop



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Based off Season 3 Promos, F/M, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, title from Second Chances by Imagine Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 12:10:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5707561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katebishoop/pseuds/katebishoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke has to look away from him, but she squeezes his hands. “You once said that who we are, and who we need to be to survive, are very different things. I don’t see the difference in myself anymore.”</p><p>---</p><p>Bellamy has been distant since reuniting after Clarke chose to go to Polis to spy on Lexa. Clarke can't take it anymore. And apparently he can't either because he's standing in her tent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you can erase it then i can atone

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me in oh I believe in second chances  
> I won't break you  
> I will not let you down  
> Open up again I believe in second chances  
> \- Second Chances; Imagine Dragons

“What are you doing here?” Clarke asks. She wasn’t expecting anyone, Arkers at least, to come by, but least of all him.

She deserved it, really.

Bellamy doesn’t say anything. He just steps further into her tent. He gives her a wide berth as he moves to stand across from her, on the other side of the tent. His arms are crossed, his eyes are hard, and Clarke can’t take it.

Clarke can’t take the way he won’t come within five feet of her. Clarke can’t take the silence, his avoidance of talking to her directly when possible. Clarke can’t take the way he looks at her, like he’s seeing right through her. She can’t take the disappointment and loathing in his eyes. She can’t the fact that they don’t understand each other anymore.

Clarke can’t take all of this right now. This is the first time they have been alone together since she had gone to Polis alone (someone needed to keep an eye on Lexa; she was the inside man this time, only she didn’t need to go undercover. It was obvious, she had thought).

Clarke is squirming under his stare; she’s fidgeting with her hands, unsure what to do with them.

“What do you want?” Clarke wants him to answer, desperately. _Talk to me, please. Let me back in._ But Bellamy remains silent. His arms just get tighter across his chest as he shifts. His eyes remain the same: searing.

And Clarke can’t take that anymore.

“Stop it!” She shouts, and he doesn’t so much as flinch. “Just stop! Stop looking at me like! I get it, okay? I get it. You hate me! I don’t need a reminder. Bellamy - I’m sorry, okay? I can’t change anything even though I want to. I want to, Bellamy. So if you’re trying to punish me, you can just forget about it, because I already got that covered-”

Her voice cracks, and she can’t even see him anymore through the tears. She tries to wipe them away but it’s no use. They just keep coming and coming and her nose is all stuffed up and suddenly she can’t breathe - _I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe_ -

Then there’s a hand on her shoulder and the shock, the complete shock of it sends her falling backwards onto her bed, gasping.

Bellamy kneels down in front of her, his arms rubbing up and down her arms, and he’s trying to comfort her - _he’s trying to comfort me_ \- are only sending her hyperventilating, because no one has done this for her in a while, and it’s Bellamy, Bellamy who can’t stand her anymore-

He still doesn’t say anything. He just keeps rubbing her arms, gently, _comfortingly_.  Once she’s calmed down a bit, her heart rate going down and her breaths becoming more even, she wipes away at the tears and she sees him again.

His eyes aren’t hard and cold anymore. Just sad, as they look up at her and _meet hers_. She doesn’t know what’s worse.

And then he speaks, and she knows.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to put this into words,” he begins. It aches Clarke to know that that sentence is the most he’s spoken to her in weeks. “I- I wasn’t trying to punish you. I just-” Bellamy sighs and shakes his head. “You keep leaving me, I was just trying to prepare myself for when you do it again.”

He sounds defeated. Tired. Like he’s giving up.

Clarke doesn’t even realize she’s shaking, but she can’t stop. “I don’t want to leave again. But- but I didn’t think anyone would want me to come back, after all this.”

“Clarke-” Clarke takes a sharp intake of breath because he just _said her name._ “-no, we want you back. I want you to come home.” Bellamy looks up at her, pleadingly. “I know I haven’t been good at showing it. Right now it’s… it’s… like Murphy.”

Clarke’s brow crinkles in confusion, but after a moment to gather the words, he goes on.

“We were butting heads. We both wanted what was best, but we had different opinions on how to do that.”

Clarke suddenly knows what he’s talking about. She remembers how she had publicly accused Murphy, almost got him killed by an angry mob. (She also remembers how that led to Charlotte’s death, and Murphy’s banishment which led to him being used for biological warfare killing several, and her second chance leading to the deaths of Connor, and Myles. She remembers what he had told her about Murphy trying to hang him. She remembers how Murphy shot Raven, how she has permanent nerve damage. She remembers _This is on you, Princess. You should have kept your mouth shut_ ).

“I know what you're thinking,” Bellamy says, “but what I mean is that it’s the same now. We both don’t want war, but. Look, I don’t even know about that - about all this political stuff going on right now. But what I do know? How this story ends?” Bellamy’s hands slide down her arms and clasps her hands. Her heart is racing. “You said _for now, we make the rules._ It ends with us, _together_ , Clarke.”

Clarke has to look away from him, but she squeezes his hands. “You once said that _who we are, and who we need to be to survive, are very different things._ I don’t see the difference in myself anymore.”

“Clarke.”

“And you know what Lincoln said to me? After we detoxed him, when we were discussing giving Finn up?” The tears are back and her words come out rushed, “I told him that wasn’t Finn, that person who massacred that village wasn’t who he is. And he told me that it was now. He said _‘we’ve all got a monster inside of us. And we’re all responsible for what it does when we let it out.’_ ”

“Hey,” he’s soft, and she relishes in his tone, because she hasn’t heard that in so long, from him or from anyone, “You may think you’re a monster, but you’re not, Clarke.” He moves to sit next to her on the edge of the bed, his arm snaking around her shoulders. “And you will always have my forgiveness. I will always give that to you, no matter what.”

He’s echoing the words that she had said to him when he thought he was a monster. Like she’ll understand; if she can forgive him, he can forgive her. _They_ can be forgiven.

But he doesn’t know what her father had told her during those hallucinations: _forgiveness isn’t about what people deserve._

Bellamy did deserve it though. He deserves everything: happiness and safety and a long life.

But Clarke doesn’t deserve any of that: forgiveness, or happiness or safety or a long life.

Yet, Bellamy thinks she does. So maybe, she thinks as she leans into his side and lets the dam break, that that could be enough, for now. That at least he can forgive her when she can’t forgive herself.

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out over on [tumblr](http://bellakeyblake.tumblr.com)!


End file.
